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"Back, gossip, back! cried Saint Peter, locking the gate in his face; we have no room in Heaven for natural-born idiots."-From Elia.

CASTA'S LEARNED DISCOURSE.

"William Tell was a noble Scottish mountaineer, who refused to salute the beaver hat which the English general, Malbrook, had caused to be nailed to a post. This brought about the Revolution and the Thirty Years' War, from which my hero came out victorious, and was proclaimed King of Great Britain, under the name of William the Conqueror. But he tarnished his glory by beheading his wife, the beautiful Anna Bullen. In order to expiate this crime, he sent on a pilgrimage to Palestine his son, Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Richard, on his return, because of his religious zeal, was thrown into prison by Luther, Calvin, Voltaire, and Rousseau, who formed the Directory in France, the same Directory which sent to the scaffold that sainted monarch, Louis XIV. It was then that, in order to avoid similar troubles in Spain, the King, Don Pedro the Cruel, established the Inquisition, whence he derives his surname."

Nothing could be more comical than the matter-offact seriousness with which Casta uttered this string of absurdities; and it was rendered still more so by the fact, that, having chosen the historical names and events with which her recollections of operas, sermons, newspapers, and conversations had supplied her, she knew, indeed, that her recital was not exact, but was very far from suspecting the enormity of its anachronisms.From One in the Other.

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were numerous.

FABER, FREDERICK WILLIAM, an English clergyman and hymn-writer, born at Calverley, Yorkshire, June 28, 1814; died September 26, 1863. He was educated at Oxford; was ordained deacon in 1837, priest in 1839, and in 1843 became rector of Eltham; but two years later he formally united with the Roman Catholic Communion, to which he had for several years been strongly inclined. In 1848 he joined the "Oratorians" at Brompton, of which religious house he became superior in 1850. His writings in verse and prose His principal poems published before leaving the Anglican Church were The Cherwell Water Lily (1840); Sir Lancelot (1844, rewritten in 1858), and The Rosary and other Poems (1845). After becoming a Roman Catholic he wrote many Hymns. In 1857 he put forth a collected edition of all the poems which he had published. Several of his hymns, such as "O come and mourn with me awhile," "Hark, hark, my soul!" "Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go," have found a place in Protestant as well as Catholic hymnals. Of Faber's devotional works in prose, the most popular are All for Jesus (1853); The Blessed Sacrament (1855), and The Precious Blood (1860). In 1869 was published The Life and Letters of Frederick William Faber, edited by Father Edward Bowden. Some of these letters, although not

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written for publication, are of special interest as showing the progress of his feeling toward Roman Catholicism. On St. Alban's Day (June 17), 1843, he writes from Rome to his friend the Rev. J. B. Morris, who also subsequently became a Roman Catholic:

FABER AND POPE PIUS IX.

The Rector of the English College accompanied me [to the Vatican, where he went by appointment for a private presentation to the Pope], and told me that as Protestants did not like kissing the Pope's foot, I should not be expected to do it. We waited in the lobby of the Vatican library for half an hour, when the Pope arrived, and a prelate opened the door, remaining outside. The Pope was perfectly alone, without a courtier or a prelate, standing in the middle of the library, in a plain white cassock, and a white silk skull-cap (white is the papal color). On entering I knelt down, and again, when a few yards from him, and lastly, before him. He held out his hand, but I kissed his foot; there seemed to be a mean puerility in refusing the customary homage.

With Dr. Baggs for interpreter, we held a long conversation: He spoke of Dr. Pusey's suspension for defending the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, with amazement and disgust; he said to me: "You must not mislead yourself in wishing for unity, yet waiting for your Church to move. Think of the salvation of your own soul." I said I feared self-will and individual judging. He said: "You are all individuals in the English Church; you have only external communion, and the accident of being all under the Queen. You know this; you know all doctrines are taught amongst you anyhow. You have my good wishes, may God strengthen them! You must think for yourself and for your soul." He then laid his hand on my head, and said: "May the grace of God correspond to your good wishes, and deliver you from the nets (insidie) of Anglicanism, and bring you to the true Holy Church." I left him almost in tears, affected as much by the earnest,

affectionate demeanor of the good old man, as by his blessing and his prayer. I shall remember St. Alban's day in 1843 to my life's end.

for,

As to myself, nothing retains me [in the Anglican Church] but the fear of self-will. I grow more and more Roman every day, but I hope not wilfully. I used-and blessed it was-to invoke the Saints; but since the day last Lent, when you said you feared it was not justifiable on our system, I have desisted please God, I will obey in all things while I can. do not know what the end will be indeed; I hardly dare read the Articles; their weight grows heavier on me daily. I hope our Blessed Lady's intercession may not cease for any of us, because we do not seek it, since we desist for obedience sake.-Life and Letters.

But I

A few weeks later he again writes to Morris:

DOUBTING AND SUFFERING.

Whatever be the end of my doubts, I can already rejoice in one thing, namely, I have suffered. One of the Saints said “Patire e morire-To suffer and die;" but Sta. Maria Maddalena de'Pazzi went further, “ Vivere e patire-To live and suffer." . . . If we are not now in the One Church, but in a concubine (so long as it be a doubt), we may hope, in the endurance of that last mercy, Purgatory, to be knitted into that true Body; but if it grows beyond a doubt-what then? You will say, Suffer, suffer, suffer. If it be so, I must go on, and God will reveal this also to me. If I try to pray, if I kneel without words in acknowledgment of God's Presence, if I try to love Christ, if I meditate on the Passion, all is in the mist and in the dark. I think "All must begin with the One Church; are you in it? If not, of what good is all this? You have had it put before you. Look at her Catholicity, unity, sanctity, fruitful missions, clear miracles, wonderful Saints, ancient things. You pray in vain, because you have not really humbled yourself before the Church thus revealed to you; you confess in vain, you communicate in vain; all are shadows." So thoughts rush upon me. If in

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